Fractal Custodial Grandparenting

Women turn into Men after 50

I did not know this.

We were sitting at the dining room table.  Pint was standing next to me.  DH (Pappy) likes to say silly things to the children, with no warning and things that make no sense whatsoever.

Like, when the babies were first learning how to talk, he taught them to say

Proctologist.  Which IS pretty funny coming out of the mouth of a nine month old.

Not cuss words. Never cuss words, cause we don’t actually think that’s funny.

But weird things. Strange things.  Like, “Johnny has a long thin mustache.”

Or, well, you get the point.

Anyway, Pappy tells Pint – “Stop braiding your nose hair.”

Pint looks at him and says “Pappy I don’t have nose hair. People don’t have nose hair!”

To which I replied, yes they do, I have nose hair.  (At this time I and Pappy are both thinking about the woman in the receiving line at Pint’s Mom’s wedding who in fact, DID have nose hair, and it was so gross because it was hanging out of her nostrils and I had to stay in the receiving line and not laugh out loud when she came through….)  I know this is what he is thinking because that is why we are married.  We are in each others minds.

Pint looks sideways at me, and sort of mumbles under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear…

“Well, yeah, but that’s because Women turn into Men after they are 50.”

I did not know this.

So let me introduce myself, Dawn, formerly a woman, now a man for two years!!

I am wondering how this affects our family dynamics. Should I no longer be Meemaw?  Should I stand up to urninate?

Or is this a more metaphysical change, only affecting the inside of the formerly woman?

I shall have to devote much time to this.

The dryer is fixed.  But, I had to pull it out again as I noticed that the floor was wet in front of the dryer, causing a great deal of cursing as I noticed it right in the middle of dinner, and being a Type A person, I couldn’t just let it go until I had time.

No. I had to turn dinner off and go right into the laundry room and pull the stupid dryer out and find out WHY the moisture which is supposed to be wicking safely away to the dryer vent hose and then safely outside, is instead, coming out under my dryer and onto my fake wood looking linoleum floor.

It is coming out because the other end of the dryer vent hose is not firmly hose clamped around the piece of large tubing that comes out of the largish hole in my floor behind my dryer.

It is not firmly hose clamped because the end of the tube that sticks out, no longer does, so to speak.

When I wiggled it to find out if I could, in fact, pull it out further, it dropped into the hole and into never never land.  It is never never land because it is under my house and I will NEVER NEVER crawl under there.

So, I mushed and pushed until the hose fit into the opening and stuck it in about 6 inches.

No moisture problem.

And, I am hoping that the fact that the dryer is now venting directly under my home will help dry it out.  If it blows lint all over, does that count as insulation?

Is it a fire hazard?  Oh damn.  Now that means I will have to figure this out. And, I will have to do it before the snow hits.

Never say Never Never.

I did not hit the lottery Wednesday night.  I was hoping to, I even actually got out of my car (call the paper, I did not use a drive through) and went into a store and purchased two $1.00 tickets.  I figured I could handle two $1.00 tickets.

Again, I learned my lesson.

Baby found a neat site for free ringtones.  Phonezoo.com  I am there now, busily creating my ringtones.  It says you can make your own ringtones from the music you have on your pc.  Since ½ Pint has an iPod, I have lots of her music.  But, the good part is, I have the latest Paul McCartney CD, Memory almost full, which describes both his and my memory I guess. LOL.

I love the CD.  Well, I love about ½ the CD.  I tend to fast forward each song to see if I like them.  If I think I will, I play them.  If not, I skip em.

So I am busily downloading Paul Ringtones to my phone.

Gotta love Paul McCartney. What is not to love?  He’s still, (to me) as cute as he was when I was 12 and Love Me Do came out.

I own every CD he ever made.

Dawn, Former Woman turned Man after 50 and in love with Paul.

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Note to self.  When dryer has already been set to 70 minutes THREE time to dry white’s consisting of bra’s, undies and washclothes…and they are still wet after 210 minutes of drying something is wrong with dryer.  Quit turning it on over and over, these clothes will not dry.

Further note to self.  When you have time, pull dryer out and see what is wrong with stupid thing.

Further note to self. Do not bother asking husband to do this.

Good Morning everyone !!

I got up this morning !!  That was a positive moment. Getting up is a good way to start the day, considering the alternative.

I got up an hour late….but I did get up.  I absolutely love my girls, cause when I ran panicked into their bedrooms and said, GIRLS!! Hurry up and get up and go pee and get dressed cause I overslept and the bus will be here in like TEN minutes….they actually DID.

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed Pint’s patch, looked for a pair of scissors to cut the patch packet open, and couldn’t find scissors because they weren’t in the wee little slotty sort of thing that is at the bottom of the knife block where they belong, and this was just a little bit much for my sleep fogged mind to process.

Knowing that this would put me over the edge, I instead decide to lock Monster up in the bedroom with DH, cause I so do not have time to take him out to potty (graze and wander and be yelled at for 20 minutes pretending he is a horse before finally doing his business) and if I let him wander the house, he will leave a nasty pile of dump somewhere.

Lock Monster up, back into the kitchen.  Remember patch.  Pull out 10” Henkel Chef’s Knife which is kept razor sharp cause I hate dull knives.  Try to cut 3” x 3” plastic packet with huge very sharp knife.

The physics of this are bad physics.  The decision to open the packet with a large knife is a bad decision.  The fairly large, deep cut on my finger hurts.

The patch is applied.

Lunch.

Has.  To.  Be.  Made.

This may put me right over the edge here.

Grab Pint who is wandering through the kitchen.  Pint, go over to pantry and find some stuff for me to put in your lunches.  Try to not give your sister a can of peas please.

Grab two slices of bread and get the bologna out of the fridge.  It feels a bit not fresh.  I’d smell it, but my sinuses do not cooperate in the morning.  If I ask the kids to smell it to see if it is okay, they will in no way, ever eat Bologna  I am out of Peanut Butter. again.

Okay, command decision here.  Put the not feeling fresh bologna on the sandwich.  Life is full of chancy things.  Might as well start young learning that.

Pull out the zip loc baggies.  There are three.  I need six.  Pull out the saran wrap. They hate saran wrap because there is some law of saran wrap which states “Saran wrap will not stick to anything when applied correctly, but when you try to unwrap whatever you have unsuccessfully stuck the saran wrap too originally, the saran wrap will then act like you have super glued it.”

Pint told me when I use saran wrap she usually gives up completely on the sandwich and just eats whatever she can unwrap easily.

Too bad, it’s the end of the month, you are getting saran wrap.

Put the stuff into the lunch boxes.  Put the lunch boxes into the book bags.  Grab the brush and fix hair.

Call CPS cause my kids left without brushing their teeth.

I cannot find my cell phone.  This is not good.  I play solitare while waiting for the bus to show up.  It’s, well, it’s part of my routine, and this morning, my mind is not well, and I need my routine.

Look on table.  No. Look on counter. No.  Go and look on nightstand.  No.  Call cell phone. No noise anywhere.

I know I carried it out of the bedroom.  I know because it beeped and told me at 8:05 A.M. that today was BLUE day for ½ Pint and she had to wear blue to school.

Pint comes wandering in and says to me…”meemaw, why is my bookbag playing Crazy Train?”

I packed my cell phone into her lunch box.  That would have been funny as heck in school, cause, well, my ringtones are all coded, and some of them are not politically correct…..if you get my drift.

I pulled my dryer out.  I did ask my husband to do it.  His answer was, “Why would I do it, you know more about dryers than I ever will…”

I hate that.

I pulled the dryer out to see why my clothes weren’t drying.  First I held the little button down and turned it on with the door open.  There is hot air coming out.  The drum is turning.

Alrighty then.  That narrows it down to only one thing possibly wrong with the dryer.  Either the hose is blocked with lint, which is the most frequent cause of house fires and which I clean out regularly, or….

The hose is not venting out the moisture for some other reason.

And that reason is the hose is flattened out on the floor like a slinky laid on the table and slid so that it is flat.

And, of course, if you try to pull it up, it comes off the vent.

But, it didn’t when I pushed it back.  It did however squish right back down.

Hmmmmm.  Grab some tape. Wrap said tape around middle of hose.  Pull at 3 ft swath of tape up and hook it to the top of the dryer.  Push dryer back in. 

Hey, it stayed. Cool.

Turned dryer back on.  20 minutes later, my undies are DRY.

Note to dryer manufacturers.  Fix that problem.

Successful day.

Love to all and kiss your babies.

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So there I was….

Happily driving along the little winding road, three girls safely buckled into the carseats, radio on country (they won’t let me listen to talk radio when they are in the car…grrrrr), and we are merrily going along to the school for the

Ta da

First girl scout meeting of the year.  The sign up meeting.  Oh Happy Day!

We get into little town on the way to school.  Little Town is our closest town.  It has a grocery store (just reopened 2 months ago after being shut down for YEARS.  It has a few churches, several bars, one gas station, one American Legion, a bowling alley which allegedly is still open although in the three months we have lived here I have yet to see the lights on, a HUGE bank which started in Little Town and just got bought out by a BIG bank….and a convenience store.

That’s it.

The speed limit in the beginning of Little Town is 35, dropping to 25 as you hit the bank area.  Traffic is backed up, which quite literally never happens.  We slow down, and realize that we are seeing Police Officers, which we also never see. They are holding traffic up so that the bank signs can be changed.  It is 5:30 pm.

As we sit, completely stopped in traffic, singing along to the radio, I am thinking, please don’t let this make me late to the meeting.

We start driving again, and get about 2/3 the way through town.  Out of nowhere, in the back seat comes that sound that I absolutely dread.

It is a high pitched screech.

And all three girls are doing it.

Continuously.

And, while they are screeching, they do not talk. They simply screech.  Any blog reader who has a small girl child resident, or remembers one when they were resident will know this sound.

It is the sound of ………

A girl seeing a bug.

And, it is extremely hard to drive with that noise.

Oh. Did I forget to mention, there is NO parking anywhere on the street in this town.  Not no parking laws, just no room to park, as it were.

So I am trying to communicate with the screechers. Doesn’t work, all I get back is further screeching.

Then, the kicking starts on the backs of the seats by three hysterical girls.

Hard Kicking.

Finally, seeing a place where the road widens slightly, I pull off, jump out of the car, have the presence of mind to run around the car to the sidewalk side, and throw open the door.

All three girls have already undone their seat belts and bail out of the car.

Now, they are all jumping around, hysterically screeching, crying, tears and snot running down their faces, waving arms and starting to RUN.

Grabbing them, I attempt to communicate again.

There.  Was.  A.   Spider.

And, it is still IN the car.

Well, alrighty then.  Let me whip out my Supermom Cape and take care of that spider.

What does it look like?  They all three describe the spider as white, extremely large and it had HUGE fangs.

Then Pint realizes that the spider had last been seen on HER shoe, and it might have

C r a w l e d  u p  h e r   l e g.

She immediately starts jumping up and down again, screeching and crying.

I cannot help it.

I start laughing.

I look, because, hey, a spider that big, you’d think you’d see a bulge or something in her jeans…LOL.

She is still screaming.  Do something MeeMaw!  There might be a spider in my pants.

I look at her, still laughing and say,

Well, then take your pants off.

She stops crying immediately, looks at me like I have lost my mind entirely and says, perfectly quietly and calmly

MeeMaw!  I can’t take my pants off right here in the middle of the street!

I took the carseats out, looked for the spider which of course, was nowhere, faked it, took of my trusty Birkenstock and killed a spider that wasn’t there.

Oh, the cops?  Nowhere to be found.  No armed officer to take care of the situation.

Back into the car we go, unwillingly, but I convince them that there is a car wash ½ block away, and we will stop there and I will completely vacuum out the car so that there is no way a spider could be in it.

We drive the half block.  Get out next to the vacuum.  I start walking to the change machine, telling them to DO NOT MOVE until I get back. Stand with hands on the car.

I get halfway there, and the screeching starts back up. There is a bee.  **sigh**

The change machine is broke.  I only can find two quarters, the vacuum takes three.

We arrive at the girl scout meeting, red faced, tear streaked, and only five minutes late.

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Note to self.

Don’t ever steam clean champagne carpet with Orange Glo and Bleach Mixture.

It doesn’t work on the green marker stains anyway, it didn’t significantly fade the red kool aid, stains, the crayon is still there, the dog pee just turned orange and now you need new carpet in the ½ pint’s room.

There.  Done with that. Sorry, us old people got to write regular type notes to keep abreast of things.

Doing little happy dance cuz I am……ta  ;  da     ; watching the news!!

No. I didn’t come up with the $60 buckaroo’s for the new remote…but…I did figure out how to make the tv work without it.   ****grin***

So for those of you who also had your dog eat your remote and have satellite tv…..

If you have a dual receiver…go in to the receiver and turn it on.  Hit the mode button twice so that both tvs are on.

Then grab the remote that DOES work, and turn the TV that works to the channel you want to watch.  Then hit the Record button and a little thingy pops up saying

Drum roll please……

What TV do you want to record to????

And, I just tell it to record it to TV 2 and presto, run in to the kitchen and turn that sucker on.

Only took me what?  Two weeks to figure it out.

Yeah. Well. ,

Cleaned like a maniac yesterday.  Cleaning is for women, both drudgery and therapy.  It is very cathartic to clean.

My theory is this.  When your life is going to shit, clean your house.  It won’t change your life, but it will give you SOMETHING to both control and have a positive impact upon, and further, you get a clean house.,  Three wins, no losses. And heck, ya can’t ask for better than that on a Monday morning.

Tuesday however.  Yeah. Okay.  The house is clean.  Good then.  Coffees Hot.  Wonderful.  Laundry is still not caught up.   OH!!  No. NO.  Do NOT go there. Extremely shying away from those thoughts. BAD thoughts.

So, yeah, the laundry is kind of backed up.  But, we all still have clean underwear and clothes. Besides, there is not enough laundry soap to do it all, and I worked so hard yesterday….and

Next  subject please.

So, Nursey is delivering one of the kittens today for me.  

Only, I have to drive into town to take it to her.  Then I have to turn around and drive home. Then a few hours later, I have to drive into town to pick up ¾ Pint at school cause today Nursey works….and then a few hours later DH has to turn around and drive back into town to take her home and put her to bed…

30 miles each way.  60 miles round trip.  4 round trips.  240 miles.  15 gallon tank.  $45. to fill it.  20 miles to the gallon.

I am looking at a full tank of gas, gone just running into town.

Isn’t it funny.  We have to plan out stuff like that now. We are country people.  We every single time, stop at the drive thru and buy a gallon of milk. Don’t even ask anymore.

There is a rule I have trouble with.  Never having less than a ¼ tank of gas.  I have trouble because, well, I don’t always have the  $$ to put gas in when it gets low.  I have actually been well into the red when I pull into the driveway.

My theory is, there is gas in the tractor if I need it.

This really pisses DH off.  Eh. You’ll get that you know.

Have a great Tuesday everyone.

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Monday morning at the Cracker Factory

Crises day.  Funnily enough, I do have a sign in my house that says “There will be NO crises today, I do not have time for them!”

They go ignored.  Just like the signs that say “There is no maid here..” “Given enough coffee, I could rule the world…”  ; “This house was clean yesterday, sorry you missed it!”…..”NO VACANCY”….

Baby has a crises.  That’s okay, she’s 18 and 18 year old freshman in college have those regularly.  She is on her way out to discuss it.

My personal laundry is stacked up in my bedroom, overflowing the hamper and lying on the floor.

The kids laundry is sort of caught up, one load in dryer (three days) waiting to be hung up and folded and put away….

There is a load in the washer that now has to be rewashed because it smells of mildew.

There are two loads on TOP of the washer that need to be washed.  There is one load on TOP of the dryer that needs to be put away, except that now it has to be rewashed cause the kittens have slept on it for a week and it is covered with cat hair.

I am down to the last cup of cat food and I don’t get paid till tomorrow when the old unemployment check hits the bank.

I have ½ pack of ciggies left.  1/8 tank of gas.

The floors need swept. Badly.  I want a Dyson. They are expensive.  I have navy blue carpet which I thought was a great choice!!

Dog pee on navy blue carpet turns it green.

Do they make a color carpet that will hide the following:

Dog disasters, red kool aid, coffee spills, macaroni and cheese that is dropped from a kids plate, chocolate flakes from Little Debbie Swiss Rolls and grass stains?  What color would that be? Multi colored grayish, brownish and reddish?

Ewwwwwww.

I own two steam cleaners. They work. WHEN I have the time to use them.

½ Pint has white carpet in her bedroom.  Don’t EVER do that.  She is 5 years old.  I really need to clean her room.  She dumped an entire ice cream bucket of crayon pieces over on her carpet. Boy is THAT nasty.

Last night, after the kids were asleep, I went in to check on them as I always do (actually about 20 times every night).

There she was, in all her splendor, completely unclothed.  After her bath, I had dressed her completely in appropriate bedtime clothing complete with underwear.

And, there she was minus every bit of it, and sleeping like a baby.

I finally located her unders, (stuck under her chin, wrapped up in her Wubby) and put them back on her.  She awoke and asked  “meemaw what are you doing?”

I said, “I am putting back on your unders, you undressed in your sleep and you are all nakey butt!!”

She thought that was hilarious! 

The dishwasher is running, the sink is full and there is a kool aid spill on the table next to my laptop.

Last night I finally got to watch Torchwood, a BBC show I have been wanting to see.  I DVR’d it.  If it wasn’t for the DVR I would never get to watch anything.

I highly recommend Torchwood.  It is quite funny and dramatic. The actors are good. The plots are good.  It is sort of like a Men In Black, Brit style.

They remade Dr. Who, which I enjoyed immensely in the late 70’s.  The new version is even better than the old version which is not something I expected.

We have to make a collage tonight about ½ Pint’s little five year old life. That will be interesting.

Pint got into the Gifted Program.  Out of over 200 3^rd grader’s in her school there are exactly TWO that are in the Gifted Program.  That seems a bit odd to me, I would have thought there were more???

There are two 2^nd Graders and one 1^st Grader.  No Kinders.

They are testing ½ Pint, they said Intelligence runs in families, which I found f’ing hilarious.  Like I wouldn’t know that???? Helloooooooooo.

They must get it from their mom, before she turned into a junkie…cause their dad is dumber than a box of rocks !!

Haven’t heard from him either.  He called from the jail on Saturday, but I didn’t make it to the phone in time and the next time he called, we weren’t home.  He will probably call today, maybe I will accept the call to find out what happened in court.  Oh Wait!! I can pull it up on the internet. I don’t’ have to talk to him.  If he is still shown on the booking, he is still in there, if not, they let him out.  How nice for me!  Hang on, I am looking…

Ooops. He is still there.  Sucks to be him day I guess.

He had me call his current girlfriend so he could tell her something.  I guess they don’t have a phone and I called her at her Mom’s.  She is pregnant with their third child.  He cannot pay child support for the two I have custody of, but he has 2.5 more.

***shaking my head***

I didn’t tell him that our state has warrants out for him for being behind in child support for 3 years.  Thousands of dollars.  REALLY sucks to be him day.

I guess he should have arranged his life differently.

There was a point to this blog when I started it, but I have, alas and alack! Forgotten it completely and utterly.

Life is like that.  So, hi ho, it’s off to clean the ravages of the weekend I go. Then solve the crises that Baby has and then, maybe take a bath if I have time.  I am out of Calgon. How RUDE!!

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Sometimes in life, you just need a good whiff of a baby's head.  I love the way 1/2 Pint's hair smells.  I am really down today, and went into the bedroom.  Sat on her little Dora bed and grabbed her and sniffed her head.

I felt 10 yeras younger.

Maybe we should take a baby to all the political meetings and make all the politicians sniff the baby's head before beginning talks. 

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Pet Abuse.

I am seriously thinking of starving my DH’s dog.  In my world, that makes sense.  I awoke today to three piles of large poop in my house.  One of them at the foot of the bed, one in the hallway by the girls bathroom, one just outside the door of the girls bathroom. ARRRRGGGHHH

DH fed the dog yesterday, in the afternoon.  I only feed him in the mornings. That’s it.  My theory is “less in, less out”.

No more Wal Mart bags in the bag holder which is almost but not entirely firmly attached to the cupboard right on the left of the upper sink area.  Reaching my hand waaaaay up inside to find a bag, I did manage to knock the stupid bag holder off the little tiny nails I used to not entirely secure it to the nice oak wooden cupboards.  And, hit my elbow on the way down.

This is NOT a good way to start the day.

As I cussed and picked up the empty bag holder, I noticed that the coffee pot was OFF.  Cold coffee. Yippeee.  Turned it back on. 

Went to the “unpacked items” wall in the living room where I noticed that the laundry basket full of odds and ends was, instead of being balanced precariously on top of the almost unpacked box full of odds and ends, on the floor behind the loveseat and scattered all over the place.

Thank you kittens.

Rooted through the assortment of things I should have unpacked, but didn’t, until finding a walmart bag.  Went and picked up the not so little presents that Monster left me.

Smelling dog dump before you get your coffee and ciggy in you is not a good way to start the morning.

Nuked a cuppa, grabbed a cig and went to take the retarded dog outside.  Chihuahua came with me.  Normally, I don’t allow them out together so he won’t Pee on Her.  She is too nebby and wants to run right over to sniff whatever He is doing…and gets peed on.

It was already a Xanax moment, and I hadn’t been out of bed more than four minutes. 

Sat on the step, pulled out my Palm Treo and pulled up Solitare.  Smoked my cig, drank a few gulps of coffee and said…

Please, go run in the road and get killed.

I am not really a morning person.

They chased the Flame Point Siamese stray instead.

He didn’t poop.  Apparently he had already completely evacuated his bowels in my home. 

Nursey is concerned that I have a Flame Point Siamese as an outdoor stray cat.  She has found a rescue for Flame Point Siamese’s.  In Chicago.  ***shaking my head***

It’s only a 7 hour drive, she says.  Can I please take a close up picture of the cat so she can email it to the rescue?

Sure, I’ll get right on that!

The girls are at their mom’s till tonight.  It was quiet this moring.

The other morning, I was trying to turn off my alarm clock and kept hitting the snooze button.  It wasn’t working.  I just kept rolling over and reaching out on the nightstand to hit it.  Past the cell phone charging.  Past the bottle of water.  Past the empty plate.  I hit the button on the left.  Nothing.  Hit the button on the right.  Nothing.

Finally realized that the radio station I had the alarm set to probably doesn’t play Barney songs, and that would be why it wasn’t working.  It was the sound of ½ Pint’s TV coming through the baby monitor.

A catalog DH gets has this really cool alarm clock in it.  When it goes off and you roll over to hit the snooze, it activates wheels on the alarm clock, which then rolls off your nightstand onto the floor and rolls away from you.  Then it goes back to sleep for five minutes and goes off again. Then you have to “GET OUT OF BED” to go and find it.

Oh, that wouldn’t be pretty. That sucker would be through the bedroom window in two seconds flat!

Baby got her truck fixed.  She came out last night.  She is trying to eat a bowl of cocoa puffs. The kittens are helping her. She doesn’t want to share her cereal with four kittens.

There is a nice breeze blowing in from the patio door.  I like breezes in the morning.  My morning isn’t going normal because I am not watching Fox News.

I am not watching Fox News because the dog ate the remote control to my kitchen TV.  The dog ate the remote control to my kitchen TV because DH left the house when I went to Cleveland with the girls and left Monster in the house by himself.

Monster ate my remote because it is the kitchen remote and when I am cooking, I occasionally pick up the remote to turn the volume up, or change channels. 

The nice man at the store explained to me that since dogs can smell much better than humans, the dog apparently smelled the odors from the various meat items I handle whilst cooking…..and you get the point.

The new remote is $60.  You cannot buy it at WalMart.  You cannot watch a satellite TV without the satellite remote.  You can turn the TV on, but you cannot hit SELECT which activates the satellite signal.

I am going to have a lazy day.  All the kidlets come back tonight at 6 pm.  My two because they have CCD and church tomorrow and their mom doesn’t want to have to get up early to get them ready for me to pick up at 8:30.

The other granddaughter, ¾ Pint because her mom Nursey and her Dad AFCop both work night turns.

Think I’ll run into town the six miles, okay, drive not run, and buy a bottle of wine, a pack of cigs and go take a long bath.  It’s now 12:16 pm so I can legally drink a glass of wine LOL.

I miss my TV.  I need an attitude adjustment.

3 Comments

So, well, yesterday, a wee little bit of hate leaked out. Sorry about that folks.  It happens occasionally.  I try not to let it overwhelm me, but this has been a bit of a hard week. Just so we all know that in fact, I am NOT Mother Theresa, I was NOT born with a permanent Xanax infusion and do NOT go around like a Stepford wife all day long happily mugging along in my mundane little existence getting my yaya’s off by doing little things for my family.

Oh, I do them.  I just don’t enjoy doing them LOL.  I call it robot mode.  You just sigh and keep going.  Me and the freakin Energizer bunny.

Today was swimmingly pleasant.  Girls got up with no fights, got dressed without too much angst, had time to watch TV before school bus arrived.

Had to explain to them that if they continue to call the Flame Point Siamese (stray cat we adopted as an outside cat) to them when they are out at the edge of the property waiting on the bus, that they will come home some day to road pizza instead of a cat.

Still have four of the five kittens resident.  Oldest daughter (Nursey) has allegedly placed the black boy kitten, and will be transporting it Saturday next.  I cannot wait.

I still have yet to unpack one wall of boxes.  They are on the entrance wall to the front door which we never use as there are no stairs.  Haven’t been since we moved in!!

We use the utility room door.  What a nice way to enter!  Right next to the litter box LOL.  I change it twice daily (five kittens and three adult cats) and then you walk right by the washer and dryer (always running or getting ready to run, or in the process of fluffing till I get time to fold and hang, or clothes across the rod I had DH hang over them W & D so I could hang right out of the dryer.

Which brings me to a question I have always had.  Why do we have dressers, bureaus, etc.?

Half of my friends clothing never makes it to the respective bedrooms.  My dream house, which I have designed several times, and buddy boy, the DAY after I hit the Lottery I will contact a contractor to start building that sucker…

My dream house has a laundry room that is 20 x 20.  Huge folding counter.  Built in closets on one entire wall.  Built in floor to ceiling drawers on the other wall.  I mean, why not just go into the laundry room to dress and undress.  The big bathroom is right off that laundry room too. 

Makes one hell of a lot more sense to me.  No toting the laundry from room to room to put away, stuffed into drawers that are too small to hold the clothing.  I have NEVER seen a dresser that had room in it. Never. Ever.

I always start out matching outfits and hanging them all in a row with the matching accessories.  What a joke.  I always end up with various clothing items stuffed into whatever drawer they will fit into.

As we speak, my nightstand, which is a smallish dresser of mahogany that I picked up at a yard sale and goes really well with my massive bedroom furniture is full of both my nightclothes (assorted stained t-shirts that are not socially acceptable to wear any longer, old sweats, sleep pants and the odd assorted comfy things I have amassed over the ½ century) AND my husband’s overflow from his dresser, which is plenty large, just not large enough for his clothes.  The drawers of the dresser are lined with the stuff they put on pool tables, it is all joined perfectly and polishes up real nice.  It just doesn’t hold enough clothes.

Why?

Does anyone in the world who does not have maids have organized dresser drawers?

Does anyone really ever clean them out regularly?

Where do you find the time to do it?  Do you invent the time?  Do you have nothing better to do, like, um, sit at your laptop and blog????

Have you ever sat at your computer for a longish time and realized your back is hurting like heck because you sat down crooked and are just too stupid to realize that to slightly move your position would ease the pain?  (Can you tell I just did that very thing????)

Monster gets stupider every day.  I need to take him to the vet to check for brain damage.  He dumped in my bedroom twice the other day.  Walmart bag doo doo.  ARRRRGGGGHHHH

One of my painless birth kidlets, is coming to the rescue so to speak.  She and her husband are both nurses.  They live about 2 hours away.  Have four kids.

Husband Nurse owns a lumber mill (the kind you can buy and keep in your garage) with his Dad who is retired.

They got a good deal (free I think) on some Hickory.  They are cutting it and just charging us for the gas to run the mill and the gas to truck the wood up here to build our shed.

WhooooooHOOOOOOOO!!!

Happy days are here again.

The tractor will not have to be driven the 6 miles on the state highway to the storage facility to overwinter.  It will have it’s own little house.

If there is enough wood, the shed will also encompass a leatherworking area for DH and I, and perhaps a Goat shed for the girls so they can have a 4-H project this year.  Goats are so much better than rabbits.  Why?  Cause goats poop in the yard and you don’t have to clean out a cage.  You have to clean out the goat shed instead, but you can make the kids do that.  If they had a rabbit cage, trust me, they would let the rabbits out when they were cleaning it out and then they would flunk cause, well, I am pretty sure that losing your 4-H project means you flunk.

Next year, being insane as I am, I still want to build a barn and buy a couple of horses.  I know, they take a lot of work.  But they are nice to have and wonderful to ride.  And, I think it would be nice for the girls as well.  Okay, I am the one who REALLY wants them.

I really think I need to hit the lottery.  Could someone please provide me with the winning numbers? I would really appreciate it.  Course, I have heard that to win, you must play. That could be a bit of a problem.

This should be (please God let it be) the last month of being flatish broke.  And, Hey! Just in time for Christmas too!! LOL

We should, shortly after Oct 1 have all the moving expenses caught up, paid off so to speak.

I got a nice surprise the other day.  I went to the pharmacy to pick up scrips, and lo and behold, NOTHING was due!!

I.   Had.   Reached.    My.  Catastrophic.  Cap!!!  Oh happy day…..

Yes, for the next two weeks (the federal fiscal year starts over on October 1^st) I can rest at night knowing that we have already paid the $3,000 catastrophic cap for this year that means that not one red cent more comes out of my pocket for any medical expense or prescription. Whew!  Boy will I sleep better.

I called the pharmacy.  Told them to fill every dang prescription they had on file.  Yesterday, I picked up a whopping $897.34 worth of prescriptions.  The co-pays would have been $86.00 and they were all freeeeeeeeee.

I have to run to the store now.  Tomorrow is our snack day in Kindergarten.  I have to go buy snacks for 25 little children and they have to fit in ½ Pint’s bookbag.  Wish me luck!

9 Comments

My Junkie Kid

An open letter to my daughter the Junkie.

I hate you.  I hate you with such a passion that I cannot even describe it.

After 8 years, I hate you so much it is consuming me.  I hate your husband who is now back in jail, again.  I hate your boyfriend who is just out of jail this time….for how long, no one knows.

I hate your lifestyle.

I mostly hate what you have done to your family, and more importantly, your children.

You had the perfect life.  You were close to valedictorian of your graduating class.  You had a dual major in college of physics and math.  You were beautiful. Funny, smart and talented.  You had the entire world at your fingertips.

You had a family who loved you beyond measure.  Your little brother and sister idolized you.  They wanted to grow up and be like you.

You had the wedding of every girl’s dreams.

Then, you started on Oxycontin’s.  And moved right along to heroin.  Then you started shooting it up your veins.

How fun.

You had a nine month old baby daughter who had almost died the night she was born.  Your house was filled with filth.  Your daughter crawled around on the floor which was littered with old McDonald’s and Burger King cups filled with stale pop and cigarette butts.  She drank from one of those cups.

You stole money from you sister’s account and forged a check to do it.  You stole innumerable things from us, from our house, from our personal possessions.  You stole your father’s gun that he had been given for his 18^th birthday and sold it for drug money.  You stole from my purse, taking money we needed for bills and food.

You got pregnant again, and used heroin while you were pregnant.  We paid for rehabs over and over again. We spent money that we didn’t have trying to save your worthless ass.

We let you live with us.  You brought drug dealers into our home.  You told us we were not supportive.  We bought you cars, we paid for every single diaper on the babies.

I took your three day old heroin addicted daughter down to our bedroom when the Dr. found a cigarette burn on her tiny little arm.  She slept next to my bed in a port a crib while you and your loser husband lived in our attic shooting heroin into your arms.

You are the most selfish person on the planet.  You have no compassion or remorse for anything you have done.

You pay lip service to it, but you still are the same.

Your children suffer every single day.  They suffer emotionally.  Their behavior has a lot of problems. They live with and are being raised by grandparents, which sets them apart from their school chums. They want to be normal. They aren’t.

Your oldest daughter sits on the swings at school during recess. She is ashamed of what her parents are, and afraid to let anyone know she is being raised by her grandparents because she is afraid that someone will ask why, and she doesn’t know what to say.  She is afraid to make friends because they will find out her mother is a junkie.

Your baby daughter just turned five years old. She has frequent rage attacks.  She doesn’t know why, and doesn’t know how to handle them.  She is so angry and has no where to let the anger out.

Your oldest daughter has so much emotional baggage from seeing her father arrested in front of her, and seeing things like her mother falling asleep in the dishwasher because you zoned out while in a heroin zone that your head touched the door of the open dishwasher.

At age two, if we asked her what Mommy was doing, she would reply, “Sleep sitting”.  How sad.

You put heroin in front of your children.  You were never a good mother.  Good mothers put their children first before anything. You make excuses about it.  You say, “I was a great mother”. You are totally clueless as to what you have done to the babies.  You think because you somehow managed to feed and clothe them, and bought them designer clothing with your drug sale money, that made you a good mother.  It didn’t.

Good mothers don’t oversleep over and over when their children are supposed to be put on the bus for school.  Good mothers are not dope sick all the time. Good mothers don’t sell their food stamps for drug money.  Good mothers don’t bring men into the home who can hurt their baby daughters while the mother is in a fucking heroin coma and won’t wake up with a two year old and a five year old in the house.

You put your children at risk by your risky behaviors and your heroin habit and the people you hung out with.  Then you got mad at us when we stepped in and took them away from you to save them.  You are angry with us because we love them enough to keep them away from you.  If you were in your right mind, which you aren’t anymore, and you don’t even have enough of a mind left from all the heroin that you can think two thoughts simultaneously, you would not let your children near you.

You say you are sorry.  You are in a methadone treatment program and you say you are clean now.  You aren’t.  Methadone is just a crutch to keep you from using heroin.  It keeps you legal.  You are still addicted to heroin, you just don’t have to go out on the street and prostitute yourself for drugs.  You say you never did that, but we know you did.  People talk in a small town.

Firstly, I know you have used while on methadone.  You have been in methadone treatment three times now, and have gone back to using.

I found you at four months pregnant with your latest baby, shooting heroin. While you were pregnant.  You had no concern whatsoever for the life you had created. I wanted to kill you then.  I called the Doctor, who said I could not make you go cold turkey because it would probably kill you, and more importantly, kill the baby.

I called my Priest, who was on vacation, and returned my call from the Pocono’s.  He told me I would have to do whatever it took to keep you from losing the baby.

I had to give you money to get heroin so you wouldn’t kill my granddaughter.  I hate you for that.  Once again, I got you into a methadone program which saved your daughter’s life.  She spent three weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care.  She had to be weaned off methadone because she was born addicted.

You think that because you take good care of the baby, who is now nine months old, everything is okay.

It is SO not okay.  I will see after you are free from methadone if you go back to using, which I think you probably will.  Then, I will take that child from you as well.

You do not have the ability to hurt the babies anymore, and for that I am grateful.  I am blessed that the kids could at least come to us, who loves them unconditionally, and takes good care of them.  Who try to understand all the shit you have put them through, who treat them with respect and love.  I take them to a counselor to help them through what you and your husband put them through.  I am supportive.  I hold them when they cry and don’t understand.  I try to explain why Mommy doesn’t live with us.  I try to explain and comfort them when they want to know why Mommy doesn’t call.

When the kids visit you, they come home very confused.  You yell at them a lot, because they do act up.  You say mean things to them.  I do not even want them to visit you anymore.

You say you are done with drugs.  I do not believe you.  You still have the same behaviors which led you to use in the first place.  You have never dealt with any of the issues that led you to use.  Until such time as you do, nothing will change.

Your life is still one crises after another.  You cannot pay rent yet.  You are $1500 behind on your rent.  You cannot feed yourself without help from welfare.  You do not keep promises you make.  You do not arrange your life in an adult manner.  You still whine constantly about how unfair everything is.  You still say how everyone is against you.  You don’t realize that you are against yourself.

You take no responsibility for what has happened to you.  You tell people you got addicted to prescription drugs because of having Rheumatoid Arthritis.  That is bullshit.  You got addicted to drugs cause you were looking for a high.  You never went to a doctor and got diagnosed.  You made appointments and didn’t keep them.  It is just an excuse.

You have never apologized for what you did.  You do not follow the 12 step program.  You have not ever taken responsibility for screwing up your life, your children’s lives, your brother and sisters lives, stealing or bringing drugs into our home.

You have never apologized for what you have done to your own children.  You whine about how you miss your babies.  Really?  Not enough to change though.  No, you living your little lying life is more important to you than your own children.

Yet, I don’t say anything bad about you to your children.  I keep all this bottled up inside me and it is killing me slowly.  I now see a shrink to deal with the stress.  You sent us into financial failure because we went broke trying to help you, and it was all for nothing.

We struggle every single day raising your children.  They are worth it, and we would not change anything about it. But, we live on a very fixed retirement income and it doesn’t go far.  But, at least we know that the children are loved, safe from harm, safe from drug abusers and people that would hurt them. They go to school every day and wear nice clothes.  They are slowly making friends.  They are so much better off without you in their lives.  They have regular activities that other children have.  They are involved in sports and church.  They get regular doctor appointments, and they get all their shots on time.  When they are sick, they are taken to the doctor and they get their medications immediately.  They are on a schedule. They have fun.  We go places, we do things.

You took them on drug runs.

There are days I wish you would either just disappear by getting on a bus or getting hit by a bus, and there are days I don’t really care which one happens.

I really don’t care that you have a ‘disease’.  I don’t think heroin addiction is a disease. It’s a choice that you made and it’s a bad one.  You aren’t the one who has truly suffered from your so called ‘disease’.  It’s nothing but a cop out.

You don’t deserve to have your children.  You think you made a mistake and that you should be forgiven. God can forgive you, I cannot.  I pray daily that I can, but that hasn’t happened yet.  I deal with the fallout a thousand times a day.

You cannot be allowed to ruin any other lives.  If I ever catch you using again, I will take the baby from you, and you will be dead to all of us at that point.

You think that I am mean.  Probably, I am.  The damage you have caused to so many people by your selfishness is incomparable to anything else.  You even lie to yourself. 

Some day, I do hope that you will realize the true impact of your stupid choices.  It’s called consequences.  You lost two of your children because you are a heroin addict and couldn’t stop using heroin and neglected your children’s needs.  You will never get them back. You are living a dream if you think you will.  To have your children back, you need to be clean for two years straight, off methadone and off any other drug.  You need to have a job for two years.  You need to have a house for two years.  You need to own a car for two years.  You need to have health insurance and food in the house.

You can’t do any of that.  The most you can do is for a few weeks.

You are such a loser.  I don’t have the energy to deal with you anymore, or your lifestyle.  All my energy is taken up raising your two wonderful, beautiful children, who are so precious and deserve the best out of life.  They certainly deserve better than a mother who values heroin more than them.

12 Comments

Zip Drive Brain.

Woooo Hooo.  Two nights in a row that the kidlets went to bed nicely.  Call the freakin paper !!

Last night, I was actually alone for a brief time.  DH went into town to pick up Baby as I was putting kidlets to bed.

Did the routine with ½ Pint.  Went into Pint’s room. Spent about 15 minutes with her rubbing her back while she fought off sleep.  It worked.

At 8:47 pm both were asleep !!

Sat at the laptop and tried to figure out this whole RSS feed thingy. Didn’t do all that well.  I understand the concept behind it, I even understand that if you follow numerous blogs on numerous different blogging platforms, you need a way to find all the blogs you follow and have them in a convenient place to read them.

Okay.  So then the question is how do I set up my blogs so that other people, assuming there are any people who want to read them, how do I (what html and where) do I put it on my page so that they can subscribe to my blog via RSS?

I used to be a lot of things.  One of them was computer literate. Not any more.  I think my brain is just too full to learn anything new. Sad isn’t it?

I almost completely understand the things I read.  Almost completely NOT.  I am mad at my brain.  I want a zip drive for my brain so that I can download the useless things floating around in there taking up valuable space.

The address of the house on the Air Force Base in Tokyo Japan was T-1072, I was four years old at the time.  My mother’s phone number in 1977 was 9163423190.  She died in 1984.  I don’t need to know her phone number anymore. She is not there.

The pizza number in the town we used to live in is 3043873350. If you ever want a great pizza, call them. They don’t deliver though.

I can remember almost any number.  It takes me approximately two times of dialing it or saying it, and it is indelibly imprinted on my cerebral cortex or something.  I hate it.

People use me for a phone book.  And a reference book.  I can remember trivia like nobody’s business.  I am good at Trivial Pursuit, but no one plays it anymore.

Names?  Don’t have a clue who you are when I meet you for the second time.  Didn’t remember from the first time.  Can stand and talk to someone I meet in the pharmacy or grocery store, carry on a conversation about things, then walk away and ask DH

“Who the hell was that?”

He just shakes his head and laughs.  I really have no clue whatsoever.

I once, and this is true, heard a commercial and SWORE that it was the voice of Arnold Shwartzenhegger or however you spell his name.  It was, in reality, James Earl Jones.

How could anyone do that?  I confuse numbers.  If something happened to 200 people and I hear about it, when I retell the story, it will be 324 people.  Don’t even know I am doing it.  My family laughs at me a lot.

I cannot remember words.  In the middle of conversations.  I don’t have Alzheimer’s Disease.  I have had myself checked.  I just grope and grope for that elusive word, and cannot think of it.  Oh, not difficult words. Common words.  Like Barbque grill.  I end up saying something like

Go out and put the charcoal in that, that, oh, hell, that black thingy that we cook outside in.

How retarded am I?

Kids names.  I mean, kids I am raising for crap’s sake.  I am trying to yell at them or get their attention.

“hey, ___________, um….you.  No, not you, YOU!.  You there, with the ponytail, what is your name!!”

Doesn’t matter if I gave birth to the child, or was at their birth, or that they have lived with me since birth. 

I still won’t be able to think of who the hell they are when I need to.

My brain has betrayed me.

I forget much more than I have ever learned.  I used to be quite proud of my brain. Not anymore.  Now, I know what truly happens as we age.  Our brains get too full and there is no zip drive.

Could someone please invent one?

6 Comments

Normalcy is Highly overrated.

I don’t think I have ever, in my entire life, been anything even remotely approaching, even in the vicinity of, or almost exactly, but not quite normal.

Ah.

Okay, I can accept that.  Lemme see.  Latest updates.

Pint, who has been going through a rough bit, is settling down.  I hope.  I don’t actually believe it, but I am hoping???

She is ADHD.  She wears the ‘patch’ which I like, I can take the patch off and within 45 minutes, there is no medication going into her little eight year old body.  If she takes one of the extended release pills, she is medicated for 13 hours.  I do NOT like that.

We did try to see if she could do without the patch this summer.  For three days.  What disaster that was…

Some children really do have something called ADHD.  Others, I believe, the parents just want them quiet.  I am not one of those.  Even on the medication, which is the lowest dose, she is a handful.

She is quite bright.  And very logical.  Except when it comes to what she wants. This kid, although I swore I would never raise an attorney, really needs to go to law school.

See, I did go and was quite good at it too.  And, I have (okay, used to have) this theory that kids should be able to voice their opinions and have said opinions listened to with respect.  After all, what better way to teach them about democracy and responsibility, right?

Well, that was then.

Now, well, at age 52, its more like a benevolent dictatorship in my house.  And, the benevolence is directly dependent on my mood.

Pint starts negotiating at the first word.  She has not been going to bed well at all lately.

Our routine is that at 7 we take baths, except on Mondays, which is late Karate days, and they go to bed sweaty and dirty.  30 years ago, I would not have done that.  I have since learned that no one puts it on the front page of the local paper….

“Incompetent parent puts two girls, ages 5 and 8, to bed with sweat on them, unbathed and without washing their faces and without combing their hair and putting said hair in the requisite (for girls) pony tail or braid to keep the hair from tangling in their sleep. Child protective services have been called…”

So, well, yeah.  You know, you’ll have that.

Anyway.  At 7, assuming that no one showed up at dinner time, assuming that I got dinner ready on time, assuming that their were no crises phone calls, etc., we get in the bath.

Baths are supposed to be relaxing.  A fun time.  A bonding time with your tiny little children.

On some planet.

I am rather like a field marshal.  Go and put your clean jimmies and undies in the hopefully dry bathroom sink.

I fill the tub ½ way.  Put the first kid in.  Wash hair.  Wash body. Rinse.  Do not repeat till the next kidlet is in tub.

Dry and get jammies on.  Into kitchen to hair combing station.  Comb hair.  Go and brush teeth.  Then eat snack.

Yeah, I know. That’s backwards. Get over it.

This is about when the negotiation starts.

Pint….it is time to turn off the computer.

She whines she is in the middle of a game.  I say too bad, it’s time.  She says I am mean.  I allow as how she is right, and turn it off anyway.

So, she watches TV.   I let her.  Now its 8 pm.  It’s time to get into bed.  She throws a fit.  I tell her just do it.  I am also putting ½ pint to bed, who thankfully, doesn’t do any of this.

The girls are allowed to watch ½ hour of tv in bed.  Then its snuggle time.

½ pint gets 10 pages of her Bible Story book, then I sing her three verses of the song I made up for her.  Then I kiss her goodnight and tell her I love her and she rolls over and goes to sleep.

Meanwhile…… Pint has been yelling for me the entire time I am in ½ Pints room.

I come out and tell her since she wasn’t quiet, she can wait for me to come in.  Then she starts.  (and, remember, this is at the literal top of her lungs…and, with real tears)

I love her sister more, that’s why I put her to bed first.  She is hungry. She needs a snack.  She knows she didn’t finish her dinner, but that was because I don’t love her enough to cook food she likes.  I am starving her. 

She cannot believe that her own grandmother would starve her.

Her life has been ruined.  She cannot go to sleep hungry.  She cannot go to sleep without coloring.  She has always wanted to be an artist and now I won’t let her color.  I am totally ruining the rest of her life.  Now, she will have to work at McDonald’s all her life because to be an artist, you need to practice, and without practice, no college will accept her.

Everykid at school will be watching this show on T.V. tonight except her.  She will be the only child in the entire student body who did not watch this program and will be made fun of on the playground tomorrow.

I am ruining her life.

I need to come right in and snuggle with her before she quiets down.  She has conducted a poll of all her school mates and she is the only one who has to be quiet before she gets snuggled.  She cannot believe how unbending I am. Not one other child who has ever lived has to go through this. 

By this time, I am headed for the either a nice glass of Pinot Noir or the xanax bottle.

I have sat there at the table, a mere um….15 feet away.  I have heard all of the above, and how she is scared of bugs, darkness (there is a 25 watt lamp on, next to her bed, it is not dark, and the monitor to the computer is still on and giving off light as well), how her pillow needs fluffed, how she has to go to the bathroom, it just goes on and on.

Finally, she quiets down, and in I go.

Now, she wants her back rubbed. So, I snuggle her and rub her back.  She goes to sleep.

It’s 10 pm.

So, yesterday, I told her.  Since your behavior at night is so horrid, we are changing the rules. Since I am a dictator, I can do that.

The computer goes off at 6 pm.  You get into bed at 7:30.  The T.V. goes off at 8 pm.  I will be in as soon as you are quiet.  For each 10 minutes of yelling or crying you do, your bedtime tomorrow will be 10 minutes earlier than it was today.  Your computer time will also be cut down by 10 minutes.

I told her this yesterday after school.  After she tried arguing, crying, threatening and anything else she could think of, the subject was dropped.  She tried. I did not participate.

Bedtime went the way I told her.

She wasn’t quiet while I was in with ½ Pint.  So, I didn’t come in right away.  I brought her a snack and told her I would be in when she was quiet for 10 minutes.

She fell asleep during the 10 minutes.  Sweet Mary and Joseph!!  I have loved this baby since the second she entered this world.  I hate what her parents did to her.  I hate that she has ‘issues’.  I hate that she has ADHD and it is probably the acid her mother took when she was 3 weeks pregnant.  I hate that she wears me out.  But I love her and cannot be harsh.  I just keep thinking that with consistency and love, she will eventually feel safe and secure and resolved to the fact that she will never be raised by her parents.

She knows, deep within her that she is so much better off here.  She remembers what it was like when her mother was using, and falling asleep holding lit cigarettes, while driving, etc.  And, yes, she had the children in the car while driving and falling asleep.  That is why we have the kids.  Things like that.  But, she is only 8 years old and has to come to grips with all that, yet.

From what her Therapist and Doctors tell me, this is all part of the ADHD Bermuda triangle.

It wears me out.

½ Pint decided this morning, after missing school for two days being sick, that she didn’t want to go to school anymore.  It’s stupid, her teacher is stupid and she is not going.

I explained to her that she no longer has choices about that.  The law says she will go to school, and go she will.

The State of Ohio passed a thingy called Kinship Care.  If a judge has awarded you custody of a biologically related child since July 2005 (a judge did), you can apply for something called Kinship care which is a one time payment, then 4 more payments every 6 months.  I could sure use the money, it’s not a huge amount, but I am going today to apply for it.  It will certainly help with expenses.

Their dad, who has not paid child support for I don’t know how long, my account on the child support website says he is $4,000 behind, is back in jail.

Pint has been missing him a lot.  He hasn’t called or anything.  I showed her his booking information (it is accessible on the internet) when she got home yesterday.  She was actually happy that now she knew where he was and why he didn’t call.

I told her she could write him letters.

I will read his replies before she does.

Another day in the Cracker Factory.

3 Comments

Tribute to Levi's.

I’m wearing my Levi’s.  I think it’s a generational thingy.  I don’t wear anything else but Levi’s.  I like them.  They are about 10 years old now, maybe 15 or so.  Could be more.  I can honestly say I have worn the same size jeans now for um….30 + years.  That’s really nice to be able to say at age 52 isn’t it?

The knee is out on the right leg.  The hem is very frayed.  The pocket rivets are starting to have holes in them.  The sewing around the leather patch on the back is coming out.

I will give Levi Strauss this. They make a damn fine pair of jeans.  I have tried other brands, all of them.

I remember in high school, there was a brand of women’s jeans/pants.  They made your butt look nicer, so they said.  GAK!  Senior moment. I cannot remember what they were called.  Oh!  I remembered.  Ditto's.  They were specially made to emphasize your rear end.

All the girls wore them.  Except me.  Nope.  Same old pair of Levi’s.

Except in Hawaii.  The years I lived in Hawaii, I wore my bikini under a pair of shorts, well okay, the shorts were cut off Levi’s so maybe it does count.

In school, you could actually leave if the surf was up.  And, I did.  Every single time.  A good bit of the teaching staff would as well.

Can you even imagine that today?  Some idiot would run through the halls shouting “Surf’s up!” and there was a general exodus.  Everyone would out to their cars, surfboards hanging out the windows or trunks.  Jump into the cars and off we went.

Parents didn’t even freak out if you didn’t show up after school.  They knew where we were and what we were doing.  Okay, well they thought they knew.  It was the sixties.  Since some of my adult children read this blog, I won’t go into too much detail. **wicked evil grin**

They all know anyway.  They make jokes about me not remembering the sixties and seventies LOL.

My Levi's and I went through alot of things together.  I always had 5 or 6 pairs running around in various states of disrepair.  Dogs and cats have given birth on them.  I have worn them to weddings (one of them mine), funerals, baptisms, dinners, the movies, the hospital, I wore them while pregnant and just left them unzipped and put a rubber band around the button.  My whole life has been lived in a pair of Levi's. 

We protested a lot back then too.  I have been thinking about those days recently.  The protests today just don’t seem the same for some reason.  Everyone is so excitable now.  And passionate.  I have my own beliefs and values, just like everyone else.  And, I even question them at times.

I stand up for those I feel are in need of some idiot to jump in and stand up for them.  I take stands after carefully thinking them through.  But, I put a lot of thought into it/them before I take any action.

I still don’t run out and shoot people (no matter how much I want to), or get arrested every other week, or travel to foreign countries to meddle in their business.

I was a horrid child.  Precocious doesn’t even come close.  Super bright and totally obnoxious is a better way to describe it I think.  If there was a law to break, I would break it, just out of onryness.  Is that a word?

But, I calmed down.  It was shortly after a rehearsal of my rock band.  I realized that I had just put sound deadening headphones on a 2 year old and a 2 month old.  Wow!  How did I get to be the mother of two little kids????

And what the hell was I doing leading a rock band, going to college and being a single mom?

The band was called “Snowblind” which is a condition experienced when the bright sun is shining on a freshly fallen, then slightly melted, then refrozen snow and the whole cumulative thing hits your eyes.  It also has exactly nothing to do with the name of the band.

Which was something else that I strongly considered.

So, I gave up the band and the um..extracurricular activities surrounding the um..lifestyle choices.

What makes some of us take inventory and stop destructive behavior patterns and some of us not?  If I knew that, I would probably be selling my system on late night TV and be really rich.  Maybe I should devote a good bit of spare time to that theory?

Nowdays, there are thousands of brands of jeans.  Nothing really iconic.  Maybe Abercrombie or Hollister, but see, even those aren’t alone out there.

Levi’s were.  There was Levi’s and then there was other jeans.  And, they weren’t preshrunk then.  Or zippered.  They were dark blue, button fly 501’s.  That was the only choice.  You bought them in the mens department.  They didn’t even have women’s Levi’s, at least where I grew up.  You bought them according to your waist size and inseam.   I started out in Jr High as a 28/30, then graduated wearing a 30/30 and am now a 34/30.  I didn’t get any taller, but I did get bigger around, LOL.

You had to buy them bigger in the waist and inseam than you ended up wearing to allow for shrinkage.  We were used to that.

There was only one tennis shoe too. Keds.  Basketball Jones shoes we called them.  Red, lace up high tops.  You only got the short ones when your mom was still in charge of your wardrobe.  And, we painted them in dayglo colors and with sayings on them.

I kind of miss my youth.  The freedom of it.   There is no freedom now.  Only responsibility.

But, I still have my Levis, so it can’t be all bad.

5 Comments

Had a busy weekend. The baby was out for the weekend, she went shooooppppiiiinnngggg for new clothes. Was quite incensed, couldn’t find any jeans to fit her. They were all too big. I told her to shop in Abercrombie’s kid department. She was like “No.”

Sorry, it’s not my fault you are smaller than a size two. Me on the other hand, am a 12-14. Been that way for years. You all know the way I describe myself anyway,

Fat, over fifty, saggy, stretchmarked, grey haired and don’t care.

Yeah. Well, there ya go then.

The ½ Pint is sicky. Sinus infection. We had a nice ride to the local E.R. on Saturday night. It was about midnightish. She had been hacking all day. I gave her the requisite ‘breathment treatment” as she calls it, good old xopenex and pulmicort. It wasn’t helping. I gave her over the counter cough and cold and runny nose meds. Didn’t help.

I don’t necessarily freak out all that easily. Not after this many kids. I knew she was sick on Friday last, and figured I could make it through till Monday. I am one of those freaks who thinks of things like “Hey, I have to pay 20% of the E.R. bill, do I REALLY need to go?”